Step 5: It's Programing Time

Step 6: Lets Calculate Some Binary Stuff

Congratulations you have made a handheld binary calculator form scratch, and now can do all your favorite math operations in binary :D. Have fun!

You can't calculate binary values "as is" on most handheld calculators and using the windows one is just a pain, so i decided to make my very own (binary only) calculator.
This calculator supports all the basic functions like : NOT,OR,AND,XOR, addition,subtraction,multiplication,division and modulo.

So join me as we are going to enter the world of ones and zeros and play with some LEDs and switches along the way!

Step 1: Parts List

Like any electronics project you will need to get some basic tools like:
a soldering iron, some solder wire, a cutter, a needle nosed plier,some wire, wire striper, and some desoldering tools fro fixing mistakes along the way.

So, you're using blue LEDs and resistors with 91ohm... But my question is what's the source voltage? Doesn't the voltage regulator lower it to 5V ? Therefore you should use 120ohm resistors - am I right?

The answer line consists of 2 lines.In the upper line in first right LED is the LSB ( Least significant bit ) which is like the first number in a digit. Lets say you work with a normal number of 5623 the number 3 will be like the LSB because if you change it that number the change in the overall value wouldn't change that much.And the 5 is the MSB ( Most significant bit ) if you change that number the overall value will change dramatically.So in this calculator the bottom left LED is the MSB one.Now the way you read the answer is like so : the first 8 LEDs are the lower part of the answer and the bottom line is the upper answer.

To make it a bit clearer lets say we have an answer of 1259, The first line would be "59" and the second line would be "12".

Thanks but I have one more thing. In the schematic you have the switches numbered. Could you help me out by telling me which number switch does what function? I had difficulty understanding the wiring diagram of the switches. Thanks again.

hi, I just want to tell you, you could have read all the pushbuttons with only 1 pin, an ADC, you would have to connect all the buttons in a resistor series and Gnd on the other side, that would give you some 7 extra pins

OK so im new at circuitry so bear with me i know programming and trying to get started in circuits so where do i make a programmer to put the code on the device and also how much about did the project cost to make thank you.

Well if you are new to this kind of things I think this kind of project is a bit over your head, I can recommend starting with something simpler like a LED chaser just to get some basic skills.I used 2 softwares in this project one called "AVR studio" in which I write the program in C and "Khazama AVR programer " that I use to write the program on to the micro itself.

The total cost with the program(which is a 1 time buy) is about 30-40 dollars.

Yes you can use any micro you want, the only thing is to look for the same number of I/Os or more.This HEX file will only work for the micro I used so you will need to compile the code for the micro you use.

I always like hardware/firmware that does something completely different and shows how to save pins.Just wish desktop PCs were as flexible as these little & cheap micro-controllers. I paid $289 for my i7-930 and my Arduino was $34.

I wonder why it took 17 days for Instructables to send me an email that this was published? Keep up the good work.